


Make Me Feel

by Ashrocksit08



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 10:27:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashrocksit08/pseuds/Ashrocksit08
Summary: Every year Toni Topaz made a special Valentine's day card for Cheryl Blossom, even if they weren’t in the same class. Every year for 5 years, Cheryl looked forward to a card from the quiet girl who drew the funny pictures. Every year she wasn’t disappointed, until the year she didn’t get a card. The year Toni Topaz moved to the south side.





	Make Me Feel

_February 2008_

First grader Toni Topaz was a huge fan of Valentine’s day. She loved all of the red, pink, and white decorations, the stuffed animals and all of the heart shaped candy. Loved seeing how her dad would always bring home little romantic trinkets that would make her mom melt from February 1st to the 14th, and she loved...well the concept of love in general. She found it fascinating that there was this thing in the world that was a universal connector and basically expressed by just being nice to people (that’s the crux of how it was explained to her at the time anyway). How it seemed to mean a whole lot to basically everyone, how almost every song was about it, and most of all, how there were different levels to it.

She loved her parents and they loved her, but as she had come to discover recently, the way her parents loved her and the way they loved each other were two different kinds of love. Toni was always one to ask questions (sometimes too many) so of course she asked how it was different. When it was explained to her, Toni caught on immediately and concluded that she loved someone too, the way her mom and dad loved one another, and that someone was the pretty redhead girl who always wore pretty dresses and was the best at cutting with scissors in the class and didn’t play with anyone but her brother -- Cheryl Blossom. 

When the big day, February 14th finally came and all the dumb little cards with superheroes and cartoon characters were passed out to everyone along with candy, the first graders of Ms. Beazley’s class were tasked with making a Valentine for someone else in the class and Toni didn’t need to think about who hers was going to be for. She was so absorbed in her card making that it can’t be said with certainty that she had looked up at all from what she was doing. She wasn’t the best artist in the class, but she was the hardest worker, and she worked hard to make sure she made Cheryl’s card as best she could, after all she was giving it to the girl she loved. 

About 10 minutes before the bell was due to ring for recess, Ms. Beazley allowed the class to get up and drop the cards they had made into little wicker baskets they’d gotten to decorate earlier in the week. There was a lot of foot traffic in the general vicinity of Cheryl’s desk, but not because kids were dropping cards into Cheryl’s basket, but Jason’s. In fact, Cheryl’s basket was empty aside from a single card, a card that Jason had made her. When Toni dropped her own card in, Cheryl’s hand shot out to pick it up and look it over, “I choo choo choose you.” The little redhead girl read out loud, smiling at the card with the picture of a smiling train on it, producing hearts instead on smoke. 

“Happy Valentine’s day, Cheryl.” 

It wasn’t the start of a beautiful friendship for the two little girls, but from then on, every year Toni Topaz made a special card for Cheryl Blossom, even if they weren’t in the same class. Every year for 5 years, Cheryl looked forward to a card from the quiet girl who drew the funny pictures. Every year she wasn’t disappointed, until the year she didn’t get a card. The year Toni Topaz moved to the south side. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

_February 2018_

For Toni, coming from Southside high to Riverdale in the middle of her junior year of high school was both a saving grace and infuriating. On the one hand, she got to go to a school where the textbooks were not only current, but there were enough of them to go around, a place where there weren’t lockdowns every other day, actual extracurricular activities, money for art and sports programs, and doors in the bathroom. On the other hand, it was a damn shame that every school wasn’t afforded the same luxuries, and she and her friends were considered lucky to have been transferred there, which implied there were unlucky kids as well. Toni had been on both sides of the economic poverty line of Riverdale. She had never been exceedingly rich, but for a time she and her family were well off. Moving to the Southside was a bit of a culture shock at first. Being quiet didn’t mean you could avoid things like bullies so Toni learned to toughen up quick. Financial strain had also put a strain on her parents’ marriage and Toni saw first hand that it turned out the Beatles were full of shit, and love was in no way shape or form all you needed. Even her parents love, which shouldn’t have been conditional was. All it took was for Toni to start hanging out with what they deemed as ‘the wrong crowd’ for her to get kicked out and on the streets. If you asked Toni, it was just an excuse for them to make a clean break without her because within a year of her getting kicked out, they’d moved away from Riverdale. 

Her negative life experiences in her young life hadn’t soured Toni completely on the notion of love, because she did know it, and found it with the Southside Serpents. They were her family and they were more than enough for her.

“Antoinette Topaz.” The teacher, Mrs. Greenfield already knew Toni’s name the moment she’d walked into the door. Toni was hoping that this class, her AP English Literature class wouldn’t be the type that made her introduce herself or anything of the sort because she really didn’t need that shit. 

“Yeah, but it’s just ‘Toni’, actually. Anotinette is just the government name, you know?” She corrected the teacher in as friendly a manner as she could and though her demeanor was cool and collected, like anybody on their first day at a new school, she was nervous, but Serpents didn’t show fear.

“Of course. Here you are, a copy of ‘Emma’ for you, it should be fairly easy for you to catch up in your reading, we aren’t too far along.”

“Yeah, it’s cool. I’ve read it a bunch of times, I’ll be alright. Thanks.” Toni told her and looked towards her classmates because this was the part where she was assigned a seat and that could really make or break a class experience. In her homeroom, she was sat behind a admittedly hot, but overly talkative raven haired girl named Veronica and her second period class had her seated next to Reggie Mantle, a kid she remembered from her first grade class who had grown up to be a major douche, subtly making digs at the Serpents while at the same time hitting on her, and it was not cute. 

Brown eyes landed on brilliant red hair and ivory pale skin as Mrs. Greenfield instructed Toni to take the empty seat next to Cheryl Blossom. 

Did Toni remember her? Of course she had and holy shit did Cheryl Blossom grow up to be a sight to see. 

Toni could feel all of the eyes on her as she walked to her desk, and yet Cheryl’s were on her compact, and when she sat down there were no introductions made as light brown eyes went from the mirror to her copy of ‘Emma’ and never once, from what Toni could tell had strayed. 

_She probably doesn’t remember me._ Toni thought to herself, and spent the bulk of her first day in English class not trying to get acclimated, but to get this girl’s attention to no avail. 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

“I’ll be the first one to admit that I was not into this whole transfer thing, but guys the food here is amazing. Try this burger.” Fangs said excitedly as he sat down at a table where Toni and Sweet Pea were already sat and he pushed the aforementioned burger into the latter’s mouth, Sweet Pea happily taking a bite of the offered meal. “I love this place.” He declared before taking a bite of his own. 

“And this place has a dark room, Tiny. I haven’t gone in, but it’s near my art class and I can guess that it’s just as nice as everything else around here.” Sweet Pea let Toni know as he nudged her arm.

Toni nodded, a small smile on her face as she made a mental note to check it out. The first half of the day had dragged, but now that she was with her boys, a united front, Toni could finally just breathe for a minute and let her guard down. Sweet Pea was a year older than she and Fangs, so they didn’t have any classes together, but she and Fangs apparently had last period together as she found out when they all compared schedules that morning. 

“How’s everybody’s first day going?” Toni asked and Sweets made a jerk off motion while Fangs gave an actual verbal answer, “Classes are whatever, but I’ve been getting dirt from FP’s kid and this Kevin guy I met in drama class on people, and that’s been pretty great. I’m learning already.” Fangs grinned. 

Toni wasn’t so much interested in gossip, but considering they were all new, it wouldn’t hurt to know what’s what around the school, “Okay, are you going to share with the class?” The pink haired girl asked, both her and Sweet Pea’s attention on Fangs. 

“Alright well, before we got here the biggest news was that some chick uh...Lodge blew in from New York and that was a pretty big deal because she came on the scene all sophisticated and shit. She hangs out with Jughead’s crew and can confirm, she’s 10 out of 10.” Toni rolled her eyes, pretty sure Lodge was the last name of the talkative girl. 

“Uh there’s a lot of animal named cliques. The football players are the Bulldogs, the cheerleaders are the River Vixens, and there’s this band everybody here goes up for, The Pussycats, I don’t know.” 

“Hey, since we’re the Serpents we fit right in.” Sweet Pea added.

“We’d be fucked if we were Ghoulies, messing up the motifs at the school.” Toni joked. 

“We’d be fucked if we were Ghoulies because Ghoulies suck in general.” Fangs said, and earned a round of fist bumps and mumbles of agreements from the table. 

“Shit, I didn’t tell you guys the craziest shit I heard about this queen bee chick uh...bombshell or something. That girl.” Fangs nodded towards a table where Cheryl sat a couple down from them, flanked by two girls on either side of her, though they didn’t seem to be talking to each other, and Toni’s interest was piqued. “I heard she had this twin brother, some hot shot bulldog who up and disappeared after some accident at Sweet Water river with the two of them last year. They found her sitting out on the rocks and they tried to recover his body, but no luck. Had to bury an empty coffin. People say they were bangin’ each other too, but Jug said that’s just gossip bullshit.” 

“I doubt they were screwing, Fangs.” Toni said, coming to Cheryl’s defense despite knowing her, she didn’t really know the girl at all, and despite that, she still felt the need to defend. 

“Yeah, probably but crazy shit right? It’s like a novela.” Fangs said, almost giddy and Toni rolled her eyes, “You have got to stop watching those.” She told him, and for the rest of the lunch period, she found herself unable to stop stealing glances over at Cheryl’s table. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Two Weeks Later...

If you asked Cheryl Blossom, Valentine’s day was the single worst holiday ever created. She didn’t have a problem with the commercialism aspect like most most people did, her grievance came from the sheer fact, that it if you weren’t liked, it was basically a day designed to make you feel left out, which was usually the case for her. 

Despite the fact that she was practically a goddess, Cheryl once again found herself without a beau, and this year was even worse because she didn’t even have Jason. The only saving grace was the fact that the holiday fell on a Friday this year, and that Veronica, who also so happened to be single was hosting a party that night so at the very least, Cheryl could look forward to getting wasted.

After her last class of the day, Cheryl stopped at her locker before heading to vixen’s practice, and upon opening it found several pieces of folded construction paper, 5 to be exact. All different, all with cute little drawings and terrible puns like one with a picture of a piece of sentient sushi and soy sauce with the words ‘I’m soy into you’ over it in bubble letters or another with a piece of sentient toast and jar of jam, hand a in hand, with the words ‘you’re totally my jam’ on the inside of the card. 

“She remembers.” Cheryl said softly to herself, her smile wide as she looked over the cards. The last one, a card with a sentient typewriter (that girl was really into giving objects faces apparently) with the words ‘you’re my type’ arching over the top also had a direct message from the girl, right on the typewriter’s paper, _‘Had to make up for lost time. Happy Valentine’s Day. - T’._


End file.
